1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a microscope image pickup apparatus for shooting and forming images observed by a microscope, its microscope image pickup program product, its microscope image pickup program transmission medium and its microscope image pickup method, and more particularly to a microscope image pickup apparatus capable of switching an observed image reading method on the basis of the change of the observed image whose moving image is displayed, its microscope image pickup program product, its microscope image pickup program transmission medium and its microscope image pickup method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Traditionally, image pickup devices, such as a digital still camera, an electronic camera and the like, provided with a storage media for recording the image data, such as digital data and the like, of the observed image of a subject which is formed by an image pickup optical system, such as an image pickup lens and the like, and the numeric value of the brightness of the image using a solid image pickup device composed of a charge coupled device (CCD), are widely spread.
Many such devices are connected and used to microscopes in order to shoot and record a microscope state, such as tissue from a living body, a cell and the like, besides generally shooting and forming scenery, persons and the like. An image pickup apparatus for shooting and forming an image observed by a microscope (microscope image pickup apparatus) has a moving image display function to search for the body part to be observed of a specimen placed on a stage (specimen table) of the microscope, determine its image angle and focus it before shooting, and displays the moving image on a monitor screen.
In the microscope image pickup apparatus, there is an operation called “framing” to horizontally shift a specimen surface against an optical axis (in XY direction), such as to horizontally shift the stage, to shift a stage clip for fixing a glass slice and the like, when searching for a body part to be observed of a specimen and fixing its image angle while displaying its moving image (A). In it there is also an operation called “focusing” to appropriately locate a specimen by operating its specimen surface against the optical axis, such as to vertically shift the stage (in Z direction), to vertically shift an object lens (in Z direction) and the like, when focusing it. As described above, an operator can determine an appropriate operating state of a microscope operation part while displaying its moving image.
However, a recent solid image pickup device has the slow update time of a displayed moving image due to the long reading time of a multiple pixel. Therefore, when framing it, images are difficult to see because of bright emission, dark change, blur and the like due to the sudden change of an observed image, which is a problem. In a microscope image pickup apparatus having an interlace scanning image pickup device, displacement occurs in image output data (color displacement in the case of a color CCD) when framing since observation places are different for each field when reading odd lines and even lines, which is a problem.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2001-148804 discloses a technology for separating when observing a moving image from when shooting a still image and switching over to a high-speed reading mode which is limited to a partial pixel when observing a moving image although it records an observed image by all-pixel reading mode when shooting a still image. Such a technology can suppress image blur when horizontally shifting the stage and also the color displacement of the interlace scanning in order to solve these problems.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2001-292369 also discloses a technology for detecting the driving state of the drive unit of the microscope of a microscope system capable of electrically driving and controlling the stage (motorized microscope), and selecting a high-speed reading mode and an all-pixel reading mode when shifting the stage and when stopping the stage, respectively.